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Bill Gates Business Milestones

The 1981 IBM deal that built an empire, the 1986 IPO at $21 a share, 13 years as the world's richest person — these 57verified business milestones follow Bill Gates from a Harvard dorm room to Microsoft's $500 billion market cap, Cascade Investment, and beyond.

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Business

January 2026

Bill Gates Accomplishments

Bill Gates Business Milestones

Tax filings reveal $7.88 billion divorce payout to Melinda as Gates falls out of the world's top 10 richest

Gates Uses Shell Companies to Quietly Accumulate $113 Million Nebraska Farmland Portfolio

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Raises $839 Million Fund III with Food and Agriculture Focus

Backed UPSIDE Foods — first USDA-approved cultivated chicken receives regulatory green light

Upside Foods Achieves Unicorn Status in $400 Million Round Backed by Gates

Gates's Cottonwood Ag Management and Leading Harvest Launch Farmland Sustainability Certification Standard

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Leads $75 Million Series B in Nobell Foods for Soybean-Expressed Dairy Casein

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Backs Perfect Day Animal-Free Dairy Fermentation Platform

Bill Gates Participates in Impossible Foods' $500 Million Series G Funding Round

Cascade Investment Makes Gates the Largest Private Farmland Owner in the United States

Gates Farmland Portfolio Spans Nebraska, Arizona, California, North Dakota, Wyoming, and More

Cascade Investment Holds Approximately 47,000 Acres of Farmland in Arkansas — Its Second-Largest State Holding

Gates's Single Largest Farmland Holding Spans Approximately 69,000 Acres in Louisiana

Land Report Names Bill Gates the Largest Private Farmland Owner in the United States with Over 269,000 Acres Across 18 States

Pentagon cancels $10 billion JEDI contract with Microsoft amid Amazon legal challenge

Becomes the largest private farmland owner in the United States with 242,000 acres

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Co-Leads $80 Million Series B in Nature's Fynd Fungal Protein

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Co-Leads $100 Million Round for Pivot Bio Nitrogen Microbes

Breakthrough Energy Ventures Backs $90 Million Launch of Motif FoodWorks from Ginkgo Bioworks for Precision Fermentation Meat Proteins

Invested $55 Million in BioNTech Before COVID-19

Microsoft wins $10 billion JEDI Pentagon cloud contract over Amazon

Gates Invests $275 Million in Ginkgo Bioworks Synthetic Biology Platform

Gates Backs Impossible Foods — Plant-Based Beef Requiring 95% Less Land

Gates Invests in Memphis Meats (Upside Foods) — Cultivated Meat Without Slaughter

Gates Launches Breakthrough Energy Ventures with $1 Billion Climate Fund

Gates Invests in Carbon Engineering Direct Air Capture Startup

Resigned as Microsoft Chairman after nearly four decades

Gates Invests in Beyond Meat — Plant-Based Meat Reducing Land and Water Use

Invested in Impossible Foods to scale plant-based meat as a climate and food security solution

EU fines Microsoft $732 million for violating browser ballot consent decree

Co-authored 'Break the Immigration Impasse' op-ed with Warren Buffett and Sheldon Adelson

Gates Foundation Trust Purchases Approximately 500,000 Shares of Monsanto — World's Largest Agricultural Biotech Company

Gates Co-Founds TerraPower to Develop Advanced Nuclear Reactors

Testified before Congress calling for H-1B reform, elimination of per-country green card limits, and fast-track residency for STEM graduates

Delivered 'A New Approach to Capitalism' speech at Davos — coined 'creative capitalism'

Testified before House Science Committee on immigration and U.S. innovation leadership

Microsoft opened a major development centre in Vancouver to hire skilled foreign workers blocked by US H-1B restrictions

Championed automatic green cards for advanced STEM degree holders from U.S. universities

Testified before U.S. Senate to raise H-1B visa cap for skilled workers

Called for complete removal of H-1B visa caps, stating 'I don't think there should be any limit'

European Commission fines Microsoft a record 497 million euros for antitrust violations

Cascade Investment Begins Quietly Acquiring US Farmland Through Washington State and the Pacific Northwest

DOJ and Microsoft reach antitrust consent decree — ending the landmark case without a breakup

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals overturns Microsoft breakup order — major legal reversal

Judge Jackson orders Microsoft broken into two companies — Gates's biggest legal defeat

Stepped down as Microsoft CEO — passing the role to Steve Ballmer

Published 'Business @ the Speed of Thought' — a #1 global bestseller

Led Microsoft through the landmark U.S. antitrust trial

Acquired Hotmail — the world's largest webmail service

Gates Visits Beijing and Meets President Jiang Zemin

Named the world's richest person by Forbes for a record 18 years

Established Cascade Investment LLC

Joined Berkshire Hathaway Board of Directors

Founded Corbis Corporation

Launched Microsoft Office — the world's dominant productivity suite

Became the world's youngest self-made billionaire at age 31

Took Microsoft public — one of the most consequential tech IPOs of the century